![Will Power scored the Kohler Grand Prix pole on Saturday at Road America. [Andy Clary Photo]](https://racingnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/160625ICSPower-P1c-1024x683.jpg)
Will Power looks to continue his run towards the championship at Watkins Glen this weekend. [Andy Clary Photo]
The Verizon Indy Car Series returns to the storied 11-turn, 3.37-mile natural road course of Watkins Glen Sunday after a six-year absence.
With the cancellation of the proposed Grand Prix of Boston, to have been run on the streets of “Beantown”, Indy Car announced in May a then one-year agreement with the Glen to host a replacement for Boston, to be held over the Labor Day weekend.
Speaking for the track during the May announcement at Indianapolis, Glen president Michael Printup noted that “We finished this (the agreement) in less than two weeks. We have a history of fall racing at the Glen dating back to our Formula One events held in October.
First opened in 1958 after running on local roads for several years, the track has hosted Formula One, sports car endurance races and NASCAR Sprint Cup events along with Indy car races in 1979-81 and 2005-10.
Rick Mears and Bobby Unser (2) captured CART races here in the early days, while Ryan Hunter-Reay, Justin Wilson, Will Power and Scott Dixon (3) have won here in more recent times with IRL/Indy Car. Team Penske won four times in those eras while Chip Ganassi Racing has three, all with Scott Dixon. Wilson’s win in 2009 was the first for Dale Coyne’s team after competing in the sport for 25 years.
Point leader Simon Pagenaud (529 points) continues to hold off runner-up Will Power (501) after the Texas re-do with Tony Kanaan (416) and Helio Castroneves (415) closely contesting third place. Josef Newgarden (406) finishes-out the first five. All five are Chevy powered.
Graham Rahal’s squeaker of a win for Honda at Texas last week gives the manufacturer two wins on ovals (Indy 500 and Texas), but with the schedule finishing on two natural road courses it might be difficult for Honda to keep Chevrolet out of the winner’s circle both here and at the Sonoma finale. Rahal (now seventh in points) and his Honda hope to make it to third after Sonoma, but is 22 markers from that spot now.
Pagenaud, who has lead the point chase since the second race at Phoenix, leads a resurgent teammate Power by 28 points with two-to-go. That is the largest margin between first and second since 2010. The driver who is leading for the championship with two races remaining has failed to capture the Indy Car crown in six of the last nine seasons. Pagenaud hopes to challenge those odds this weekend.
NOTES:
- Sunday’s race will be a 60-lapper for 202.2 miles. Ryan Briscoe holds the qualifying record at 136.935 mph during the 2009 race.
- In the nine Indy car races run here, only Will Power has captured the pole position and gone on to also win the race (2010).
- The usual 22 cars are entered for the Glen with rookie R. C. Enerson running his second race for Dale Coyne with rookie teammate Conor Daly. Other rookies entered are: Alexander Rossi, Max Chilton, Spencer Pigot.
- Ryan Hunter-Reay will become the 20th Indy Car driver to start his 200th career series’ race.
- Tony Kanaan will make a series’ record 269th consecutive start when he qualifies for Sunday’s race.
- Dixon has finished on the podium in four of the six races he’s run here.
- Watkins Glen management recently agreed to a two-year extension for the race (2017-18) with Indy Car.
QUOTES:
GRAHAM RAHAL (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda): “We haven’t been here in years and I think the team and myself have come a long way since. I’m looking forward to getting there and trying to keep the momentum we built in Texas (winner). We’re poised to sneak into the top 3 in points. We’ve made the Firestone Fast Six (qualifying) at all the road-course races so far this season.”
MAX CHILTON (Gallagher Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet): “We tested at Watkins Glen last month and I really enjoy the track. It’s fast, technical and very challenging. I know (teammate) Scott (Dixon) has been particularly good there over the years (3 wins), so I will be leaning on his experience as well. After the last few oval events it will be nice to get back to road-course racing.”
Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.
Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.
The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.
Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.
He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.
Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”